The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1887-01-22
FEED THE SOIL.
Agricultural Success Dependent on the Use
ofFertlllzers and Thorough Cultivation.

has been drawn year after year until |
nothing is left to feed a growing crop.
Though l have seen this picture more
frequently displayed in more striking
colors in the Southern than in the
Northern States, yet we see altogether
too much of it here. 1t seems to me
that in land flooded with agricultural
books and papers the farmers ought to
be educated up to a point where they
would steer clear of this visible rock
upon which so many go down to inan-
cial ruin. There appears to be some
men who will not learn even in the Sc
verest school of experience. They go
on year after year robbing themselves
OF their patrimony, their crops gradu-
ally becoming smaller and smaller,
their ability to correct their own error
weaker and weaker, until at last the
fatal hour arrives and they are ruined.
i have personal knowledge of several
cases of this kind. The farms originally
yielded sufficient income to support
the families of the owners. They raised
considerable grain, pretty fair crops of
potatoes, ETC., and never kept enough
stock to make manure to apply to one
half the cultivated land. The crops be-
gan to show the effects of starvation
and debts began to accumulate. Each
year rendered the situation worse in
stead of better, mortgage followed
mortgage, and the end can always
be predicted to a certainty. Who would
think of pursuing this course in any
other branch of businessp If farmer
puts a thousand dollars in the bank on
deposit without interest and draws out
hundred every year, he is able to see
what the result will be. If merchant
invests his whole capital in a stock of
goods, and spends every dollar he re-
ceives for sales, he is able to see that
the time will arrive when he will have
nothing more to sell, but when it comes
to the matter of taking the plant food
out of the soil, it is different There
are some who even stand up and argue
that you can milk this sort of COW
day after day, week after week and
month after month, feed her moth
ing, and she will grow fat and
sleek and increase in the yield of milk.
There is some ''hocus-pocus, some UNI
known mysterious agency by which
the elements of fertility taken out of
the soil are restored. Now and then a
farmer of more than average ability
puts off the time of final settlement
beyond the generally allotted period.
They raise considerable clover that
reaches way down and brings up the
elements of plant food from depth to
which the feeders of grain and vege-
table have never penetrated. They
run the cultivator, the roller the har-
row and clod-crusher with unhagging
zeal, reducing every little clod
and lump, they SOW rye, etc, in
the fall and set it to gathering
up the fertility and holding for
the next seasons crop of potatoes or
other vegetables. How frail the fouda-
ton upon which they build! Point out
to them their error and they are driven
to the corner where all they can say is
--"Behold! There are twenty bushels
of wheat and two hundred bushels of
potatoes! Does that look like the pro-
duct of a pOverty-stricken soil? Ten
years ago the same land yielded smaller
crops. 1t has been going on increasing
in its yield year after year, and now
here | stand head and shoulders above
my neighbors. But, my dear sir, are
your smoothing harrow, your Acme
pulverizer, your roller and all those
other machines and implements with
which you have been grinding the little
PARTICLES of your soil finer and finer
ten years old? Did you ten years agC
make a practice of using clover, rye
etc, to gather together and leave ut tn,
surface where needed the food neceS
sary to support your potatoes anC
wheatp You have taken out tons and ton
Ofphosphoric acid, nitrogen and potash
What means have you employed to pa,
buck this enormous drain upon the natu
raj resources of your farmers bank
the soil? Does the field of green rye alb
sorb and hold any appreciate amour
OF the free nitrogen of the atmos
phere9 Science says not. Do the phos
pheI ic acid and potash that you ar
,eyerS year carting away TO marke
come to you again in the mists ant
rain from the clouds above9 No ma,
attempts to so argue. Can you tax
something from what you have and no
reduce the original store? fyou nov
make careful analysis of your sol
and then take from it half doze
crops of wheat and potatoes, will j
still contain the same amour
of plant food as before tn
crops were grown? What do the lon
series of experiments of sowing whea
after wheat, barley after barley, etc,
l,,r;nor n Topp form, Of war. fooob